The present invention relates to a machine for making ice-cream products.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a machine for making artisan ice-creams and the like of the type with a horizontal whipping and freezing unit.
As is known, a machine of this type includes a substantially box-shaped frame housing a whipping and freezing chamber with a horizontal axis.
The whipping and freezing chamber is designed to mix, cool and blend together a plurality of ingredients until they form an ice-cream, crushed-ice drink or the like.
The ingredients are inserted in the whipping and freezing chamber through an opening at the top of the frame which is in fluid communication with the whipping and freezing chamber.
The ice-cream made is made available through an opening in the whipping and freezing chamber located on one side of the box-shaped frame.
To allow inspection of the whipping and freezing chamber, useful for sanitizing it, the prior art machines have an inspection door consisting of a disk whose size is identical to the cross-section of the whipping and freezing chamber and hinged to the side of the box-shaped frame.
Obviously, to prevent ice-cream from continuously coming out of the above-mentioned door, the prior art machines include a dispensing door which is much smaller than the inspection door and which can be opened as required, which keeps the ice-cream inside the whipping and freezing chamber.
The dispensing door consists of a dispensing hole made in the above-mentioned disk, through which on each occasion a required quantity of ice-cream is taken out.
The dispensing door is equipped with a closing device consisting of a plug shaped to match the hole in the disk.
The plug is connected to the end of an arm, the other end of which is hinged to the disk.
The end of the arm connected to the disk is engaged by a pusher element which pushes the arm towards the disk, therefore pressing the plug against the ice-cream dispensing hole.
When ice-cream has to be taken out of the whipping and freezing unit, the above-mentioned pusher element is disabled and the plug, due to the pressure applied by the ice-cream through the outfeed hole, disengages from the hole, allowing the ice-cream to come out.
To allow the ice-cream to come out easily, the arm is also rotated relative to its hinge point on the disk, moving the plug completely away from the dispensing hole.
To interrupt the outflow of ice-cream, the arm is rotated again, returning the plug to the position in which it is aligned with the dispensing hole, then the pusher element is reactivated to engage the plug in the dispensing hole in a sealed fashion.
However, there may be several problems linked to use of the prior art machines briefly described above.
It is not entirely easy to take out predetermined doses from the whipping and freezing chamber, since the operations necessary to open and close the dispensing door require a great deal of time to disable and reactivate the pusher element and to rotate the closing plug.
During the time needed for these operations, carried out by a user, the ice-cream in the whipping and freezing unit comes out of the dispensing hole in quantities that cannot be defined in advance, therefore making it very difficult to predetermine the quantity of ice-cream taken out.
Moreover, since the pusher element which holds the plug in the dispensing hole acts on the rotatable arm at the end opposite to the plug, a torque is created on the rotatable arm which, after prolonged use, tends to bend the arm with a consequent poor seal being formed by the plug in the dispensing hole.
In addition, in the machines described above obviously it is not possible to choke the dispensing of ice-cream.
Finally, considering the high thrust force which the pusher element must apply to guarantee correct plug engagement in the dispensing hole, considerable operator effort is required to reset the pusher element when closing the dispensing door or, alternatively, there must be actuator devices to aid operations by the operator.